‘Pirate Radio’ is a somewhat disjointed rock & roll tale

If you take the premise of “Pirate Radio” at face value, you would think that the stuffy British Government had banned rock and roll on the BBC except for about an hour or so a day. To compensate for this lack, a smattering of illegal offshore radio stations set up shop on old fishing boats outside British territorial waters and started broadcasting rock and roll 24 hours a day. Watching the featurettes on the BD would reinforce that impression.

I never quite bought into that scenario when I saw the previews for what was initially advertised as “The Boat That Rocked.” I know that many of my colleagues don’t regard Wikipedia as a reliable source, but for stories like this, I find it to be quite informative. And while the offshore ships did exist, they followed British laws fairly closely because they were hoping to get onshore licenses and advertisers.

All of that said, “Pirate Radio” isn’t half-bad. The performances by most of the primary actors are quite spot on, as the Brits like to say. It’s essentially a floating frat party; “Animal House” with a British accent. Instead of a frat house, it’s a boat where the boys play music all day and night and wait for the girls to show up.

Carl (Tom Sturridge) arrives on his godfather Quentin’s (Bill Nighy) offshore pirate radio station boat, the Radio Rock. He’s been sent there by his mother (Emma Thompson) after being expelled from school. He meets the eclectic crew of DJs: the American Count (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the bawdy Dave (Nick Frost), the naïve ‘Simple Simon’ Swafford (Chris O’Dowd), the mostly quiet Midnight Mark (Tom Wisdom); the spaced out “Smooth Bob” (Ralph Brown). There’s also Felicity (Katherine Parkinson), the lesbian cook; the aptly named “Thick” Kevin (Tom Brooke), who just sort of exists as a comic foil; and the DJ god, Gavin Kavanagh (Rhys Ifans), who comes to the boat to boost ratings and foil the workings of the stuffy British Government to shut down the radio pirates.

Speaking of Her Majesty’s Government and its stuffed shirts, they are personified by Minister Allistair Dormandy (Kenneth Brannagh, whose character is said to be a parody of then Postmaster General Tony Benn), who promises to shut the pirates down within 12 months. He takes on a civil servant, Mr. Twatt (Jack Davenport), who comes up with a few schemes to close down the ships.

• Deleted Scenes: On the BD, there are 50 minutes worth. Curtis intros the scenes, which he laments as “some of the actors’ best work” that had to be cut for time purposes. He also laments that the film didn’t do as well as it was hoped; he muses that if he had used some of these scenes, it might have. I don’t think so. The scenes are entertaining, especially the “visiting guests” bit, but the movie is too scattershot to really make a difference. He probably would have done well to go ahead and reinsert them into the film for video release.

• BD adds six featurettes, all talking about how it was back in those days when the kids listened to the pirate stations, interviewing cast and crew, and an interesting scene that was cut about a visit to “Mark’s Love Den,” with 35 scantily clad women on board. (The full-on scene is part of the deleted scenes set, which I believe is only available on the BD.)

• BD-Live/pocket BLU: Universal’s BD-Live features that are standard on their BD releases.

While watching the film last night, I was also doing the week’s laundry. The sequences in this film made it easy to hit the “pause” button because they were all pretty self-contained. This doesn’t make “Pirate Radio” a bad film; “Animal House” is pretty much the same way, and that’s considered a classic. The soundtrack is fairly similar as well.

What might turn American audiences off is the uniquely British terminology and accents in this film. Unlike the “James Bond” or even “Harry Potter” series, this film was designed for the British market first. According to the Wikipedia article, it failed there, losing out to “Monsters vs. Aliens” and “Fast and Furious.” It didn’t do too much better in its American release, but it was going up against “2012.”

I would expect this film to eventually make back its money on the college campus and midnight movie markets, as this is the kind of film they like. But I don’t see it doing too well otherwise.

Bottom line: This is a worthy entry if you’re looking for something that’s a casual romp with mature themes. Language and some nudity make it unsuitable for the younger set. It does give the BD viewer more extras, so it’s worth the extra $6 in purchase price. But unless you’re aware of what you’re getting, I’d recommend renting or pay-per-view first.